Genesis 7-8 The Flood (2)
- Read Genesis 7:1-8:22
This morning we are going to look at the account of the flood in the book of Genesis again. Last week we look at the reason for the flood, God’s hatred of sin. We looked at God’s provision in the midst of the flood, God had Noah build an ark to save he and his family’s lives, and the lives of a great deal of the animals. And if you recall, we looked at the responsibility that you and I share with Noah, the responsibility to share and to warn of the coming judgment, and to point out the provision God has made for our judgment, the sacrifice of His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.
This morning I would like us to look at some of the evidences for the flood of Noah’s time, some evidences for the Deluge.
Now, as I mentioned last week, I am a biblicist. I believe the Bible cover to cover. I believe if God had it recorded in the Bible, then it is true. I believe that in beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I believe God created a great fish to swallow Jonah. I believe Moses and a million Israelites walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. I believe Christ walked with Shadrack, Meshack, and Adednigo in a fiery furnace. I believe Jesus calmed a stormed, gave sight to the blind, raised Lazarus from the dead, paid the price for your sin and mine, is right now preparing a place for me and that one day He will be coming back to take us with Him! I believe one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Oh my friend, I believe that.
In 10th grade, in one of my classes at DeLand High School, the only high school on this side of the county at the time, we had to get up and give an oral report on any subject we wanted. There was a boy in our class who gave a speech on how he believed the Bible but why he didn’t believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
I asked him, “How in the world can you believe part of the Bible but not all of it?” He had no explanation.
And what do you say when the apostles and others tell us about the flood?
> 2 Peter 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
> 2 Peter 3:6-7 They deliberately overlook this: By the word of God the heavens came into being long ago and the earth was brought about from water and through water. Through these the world of that time perished when it was flooded.
> Isaiah 54:9 “For this is like the days of Noah to Me,
When I swore that the waters of Noah Would not flood the earth again; So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you Nor will I rebuke you.”
Jesus Himself tells us in Matthew 24 and Luke 17,
> Matthew 24:36-44 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark
The account of the Flood is mentioned by Isaiah, Jesus, and Peter. They believed it and talked about it. Jesus had no problem with miracles.
Listen, when Jesus had a paralyzed man brought to Him by the man’s friends, Jesus told the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then turning to the crowd Jesus said, “So the you may know the Son of Man has the ability to forgive sins,” He then turned to the man on the mat and said, “Take up your bed and walk.” And the man walked.
Jesus performed miracles as evidence that He was God, and so I have no problem believing a God Who can save me, can perform other miracles, like a world-wide flood, a world-wide judgment as well.
- Read Genesis 7:1-6.
Noah was 600 years old when the Flood came and water covered the earth.
I sure am glad I don’t have to live to 600 years old. My goodness. I’m too close to heaven for that. And he had just spent the last 100 years building a boat. Can you imagine? Every day as he left for work his wife would ask him, “What are you working on today?” And he’d answer, “The boat.” And every night she’d complain, “All you ever talk about is your boat.”
100 years building a boat and now the Lord says, “Get on the boat. 7 days from now I’m going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.”
1. Where did the water come from?
Some people have asked where all of the water came from for it to rain 40 days and 40 nights and if there was enough water to cover all the earth?
Look there in verse 11.
- Read Genesis 7:11-12.
The Bible tells us the water came from several sources. The fountains of the deep, and the floodgates of the sky.
Have you ever thought about how much water we get from volcanoes? Folks who study such things tell us that The abundance of gases varies considerably from volcano to volcano. However, water vapor is consistently the most common volcanic gas, normally comprising more than 60% of total emissions.
Steam equivalent to 4,600,000 gallons of water a day has been measured coming out of one of the subsidiary cones of Mt. Etna (The Flood in the Light of the Bible, Geology, and Archaeology, Alfred M. Rehwinkel, Concordia, St. Louis, 1951, pg 30)
And think of the springs of the sea! In Job 38, when God is questioning Job, the Lord asks Job,
> Job 38:16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?
My word, scientists didn’t even discover these vents, these springs of the deep the Bible spoke of until 1977, but God asked Job about them thousands of years ago.
Several sources of water for the flood.
2. Is there enough water to cover the earth?
Some people ask, “Is there enough water to cover the earth in a flood like the Bible describes?
Geographers estimate the total land surface of our globe at approximately 58 million square miles. If the water now stored in the form of glacial ice on Greenland and Antarctica alone were released, the volume of the sea would be raised by 150 feet. (Ibid 33).
Now, if at the same tremulous time, the mountains were sinking and shaking, the earth being reformed, there would be plenty of water to cover the earth.
When we remember that if the whole earth were perfectly flat the oceans would cover it to a depth of 1 1/2 miles, it is easy to see that there would be plenty of water for God to cover the earth with it (The Flood Reconsidered, pg 27).
As evidence of a rising and sinking earth and mountain ranges, there is the skeleton of a whale, on top of the mountain Sanford, on the coast of the northern sea, 3,000 feet above sea level. (The Deluge Story in Stone, pg 85).
Even though elephants are not known to climb mountains, or even the low hills surrounding the plains where the live, “their fossil bones have been found in the highest elevations man has attained in Tibet.” (Ibid 93)
3. Is there evidence for changing times and climates due to the flood?
Did you know that there are fossils of plants and man-made implements found in the Sahara Desert that show that the great African desert was once covered with luxuriant vegetation and was inhabited by man? (Ibid, 6).
The fossils show that there was a uniformly mild climate in high and low altitudes of both the northern and southern hemispheres, a perfectly uniform, non-zonal, springlike climate in every part of the globe.
Some have asserted that the woolly mammoth was specially adopted for life in Arctic conditions, but this has been firmly denied by others who point out that the regions of Northern Siberia with anything like their present climate could not possibly have sustained herds of thousands of mammoths, each requiring something like 2 tons of food per week and 30 gallons of water a day. Especially when we remember that the fossils embedded there show that they were living alongside great hearts of bison, sheep, horse and rhinoceros. Surely the evidence there is conclusive that a great change of climate has come over this area. (The Flood Reconsidered, pg 21).
Mammoths were becoming very numerous, they were suddenly and completely wiped out from the earth, at about the same time as the climate changed in Europe and Asia. Their bodies form the mammoth cemetery. (Ibid 22)
There is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world as revealed by the plants and animals entombed in the rocks, and the climate was a mantle of spring-like loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the whole globe. (Flood, 7).
An irrefutable proof for the unparalleled luxuriance of plant life in that pre-historic world are the great coal beds found in every continent of the earth today. The Byrd Antarctic Expedition discovered a whole mountain of coal at the south pole. It has been estimated that it requires from 10 to 14 feet of votable matter to produce a seam of coal one foot in thickness. In a strip mine in Wyoming a seam measuring from 60 to 90 feet in thickness has been discovered. This means that a solid mass of vegetation, trees, and other plants from 500 to 1,000 feet in thickness was required to a seam of coal that think possible. (Ibid 11, see also pg 56).
4. What would happen to the animals if such a flood occurred?
Many of them would drown, and then with the moving of the waters the way they were, many of them would be buried alive and their bodies preserved.
The dinosaurs of the Red River Valley in Alberta lived and died by the thousands so that the skeletons are thickly scattered over the badlands along the river there”. (Stone, 103).
The mammoths we spoke of several minutes ago, thousands and thousands of them were buried in Siberia, and across to Alaska. When they were found, they were not eaten. They did not starve. Many were found buried, standing up, food still in their mouths.
Can you imagine for the animals that had time to flee? What would they do? They would probably run and try to find the highest place of land they could to avoid the rising waters.
Well, scientists have found many of those places they call Ossiferous fissures. In Gilbraltar, Palermo, Corsica, Malta, Yagoslavia, Corfu, Greece Creete, Cyprus, South Russia and North Africa, and around the world, scientists have found places where the remains of every kind of animal are all buried together, without them eating one another, or fighting, just buried.
5. Evidence
Coal bed in Virginia where a hammer was found in the coal bed
There are several places around the world where trees are found vertically hanging through several layers of coal.
Stories of the flood are recorded in Greece. Babylon. Among many of the indian and native tribes in Australia, North and South America.
Man living with dinosaurs. Dinosaur Track National monument. Human and dinosaur tracks side by side.
6. Judgment coming.
- Read Genesis 7:1, 6
God said a flood was coming and that He was going to destroy all life, and He did just what He said.
The Bible says, “It is committed unto men once to die and then the judgment.”
Jesus has prepared a place for us.
3
They say the 2 happiest days in a boat owner’s life is the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. Don’t you know Noah was happy on the day he was finally able to leave the boat?
Well, I look forward to the day when I leave this place and see what the Lord has prepared for me.
